Summer has arrived again

The season of the heat, of the holidays, of the “diaspora”, that is of the great migrations to the mountains, to the lakes, to the sea, to the destinations of strong tourist, cultural, religious attraction … Also our Parish in this time is thinning. Gaps grow in church pews, parties fall, appointments and meetings diminish … You breathe a different air. After a year of hard work, you feel the tiredness and the desire for a little rest: you have to “pull the plug”!

Will we find true rest during the summer?

Perhaps we need to rediscover the true meaning of rest, which is not a simple escape, dispersion, escape from the daily monotony. Living the holidays is not just or primarily suspending work. Often you choose routes and ways of “vacation” that do not favor rest because they are equivocal.

Living the holiday season is not just leaving work and looking for a change in the pace of life. It is not uncommon to hear that at the end of the holidays you return to work more tired than when they started!

Summer is a time of rest. Rest often becomes synonymous with idleness and sloth. Our society has accustomed us to follow frenetic rhythms alternating with moments of absolute laxity in holiday times.

The Christian sense of rest

It is profitable to ask what is the Christian meaning of rest. This question, apparently banal and predictable, reveals the truth of our spirit. In fact, conceiving rest as the total absence of commitments, as a refusal to think about the various problems of life, is a not so relaxing way of conceiving the summer break. Even if the efforts of one’s profession are set aside, the commitments of family life remain. The family never goes on vacation: being a mother and a father is a profession that knows no sunset. Moreover Jesus, during his earthly life, did not take periods of vacation from his disciples or even from the people who came to him to be healed or heartened.

The true rest is in prayer

The only moments of true rest for Jesus were those of prayer, where he found relief of his soul in listening and in dialogue with the Father. This time that he dedicated to prayer constituted for Jesus a drawing of that spiritual strength to be always ready to serve others and thus be able to fulfill his mission entrusted to him by the Father. We can say that prayer is a source of true rest.

In time of vacation we have more time to heal the physical and spiritual wounds that life has caused during the year. The usual conditions of life, sometimes frantic, leave little room for silence, reflection, contact with nature, to consolidate the relationship and harmony between spouses and with their children; to make relations with friends stable and cordial. Moreover, during the holiday period, one can dedicate more time to prayer, to reading the Holy Scriptures, to meditation on the profound meaning of life and on the great last questions of life: death, judgment, hell, paradise … .

Prayer is the life of the new and renewed heart

It must animate us at all times from the moment it situates us in the “remembrance of God”. Our heart is restless and does not find rest until it discovers the object of its love. St. Gregory Nazianzen said: “It is necessary to remember God more often than one breathes.”

Without serenity in the spirit there can be no rest

It is very difficult that the opportunities for an enjoyable life and body relaxation are the way to get true rest. The spirit asks us for something more. We all want to be happy and content; however, this cannot be achieved unless it goes to the source from which full joy flows. Life is very important and we cannot trivialize it with absurd bets.

Making room also for our inner dimension and recreating the dialogue of friendship and love with God who loves us will make us more rested and happy.